On the first day of the Soviet-Mongolian counterattack east of the Halakha River, the Japanese troops who were digging trenches in the Nomenkan area were beaten by the opponent's armored assault tactics. Although Soviet Russia has not officially declared war on any country since the establishment www.biquge.info of its regime, whether it was the civil war in the late 10s or the Caucasus conflict in the 30s, the Soviet Russian army has shown its strength on the battlefield that cannot be underestimated. Not only that, but for more than 20 years, they have closely followed the military development of the great powers, and have obtained a large amount of technical and tactical information through cooperation with the American and British camps. This time, the armored cluster assault operation was launched in the Nomenkan area, and the skillful coordination of the chariot unit and the mechanized infantry showed its skill, and the Japanese officers and men who did not know how to do it naturally suffered a great loss. Had it not been for the infantrymen of the 23rd Division, who held the main position with an extremely tenacious will to fight, and destroyed more than 20 Soviet tanks with explosives and incendiary bombs, the collapse of the entire front would have been inevitable.

After this day of fierce fighting, the Japanese 23rd Division alone suffered more than 4,000 casualties, accounting for almost a quarter of the combat soldiers of the division. Seeing the ferocity of the enemy, Komatsubara hurriedly contacted the headquarters of the 1st Tank Brigade, which had come to help in the battle, hoping that they would be able to stop the fierce attack of the Russians.

The 1st Tank Brigade of the Japanese Army is a new type of combat unit modeled after the standards of the armored forces of Germany, the United States, Soviet Russia and other army powers, and its formation time can be traced back to 1930, but due to Japan's limited national strength, most of the manpower and material resources in the twenties and thirties were invested in the almost crazy naval construction, so the energy for the development of armored forces is very limited. Now it is equipped with the 1st to 5th Tank Brigade, the Artillery Brigade directly under it, and the Baggage Brigade. By the beginning of 1940, the brigade was equipped with four types of combat vehicles: the Type 94 "Xiaodou Chariot," the Type 89 medium tank, the Type 95 light tank, and the Type 97 medium tank, plus various armored vehicles, and more than 400 mechanized vehicles.

The 1st and 3rd Tank Brigades sent to Hailar by the Kwantung Army Headquarters in advance were the main brigades of the 1st Tank Brigade, equipped with relatively good performance Type 95 light tanks and Type 97 medium tanks, and a small number of Type 94. In the past few years, Japanese tanks have rarely missed a battle on the Chinese battlefield, but on the east bank of the Halaha River, they encountered a modern armed force with far superior technical and tactical content to the Chinese army. At the beginning of 1940, the Soviet Russian armored forces took the 20-ton C-35 tank as the main force in service, and its outline and even some designs were quite similar to the Irish "Celtic Warrior", equipped with the ZIS-4 57 mm caliber tank gun developed by Soviet Russia and with very strong armor-piercing ability, with a maximum armor thickness of 30 mm. In addition, the Soviet Russian army is also equipped with BC-4 fast combat vehicles with cross-country speeds of up to 50 kilometers per hour, and C-30 heavy combat vehicles with a two-turret construction, the former with a total combat weight of 12 tons, a maximum armor thickness of 15 mm, and a 45 mm tank gun with a diameter of 42 times as the main armament. The latter uses a 76.2 mm short-barreled howitzer in the main turret, a 7.62 mm machine gun is mounted on the back of the turret, and a 45 mm anti-tank gun in the secondary turret, and a 7.62 mm machine gun on the front of the hull, with a maximum armor thickness of 20 mm.

These Soviet and Russian tanks were enough to overpower the Japanese army's "Xiaodou tank" in terms of tonnage and firepower, and they were not a problem against the Type 95 light tank with a maximum armor thickness of only 12 mm and a 37 mm tank gun, and only the Type 97 medium tank with a maximum armor thickness of 33 mm and a 57 mm gun could barely confront it.

Due to the long distance and lack of preparation, it was not until nightfall that the two tank brigades sent by the 1st Tank Brigade arrived at the front line. Seeing their own tank troops, the Japanese officers and men on the position were overjoyed, their morale was greatly boosted, and the cries for counterattack and revenge were endless. The original intention of the commander of the chariot unit, Matsuda Daisa, was to have a dignified duel with the Russian army the next day, and to use the spirit of bushido to forge the glory of blood and fire, but the commander of the 23rd Division, Komatsubara, disagreed. This Japanese lieutenant general is an out-and-out Russian expert, who has dealt with the Russians many times from the Russo-Japanese War to the intervention in the Far East, and has been studying the strategy and tactics of the Soviet Russian army in recent years. Knowing full well that the Russians were arrogant and that daytime victories would make them let their guard down, he strongly recommended that the 1st and 3rd Tank Brigades be the vanguard, and the 64th Infantry Wing, which suffered less casualties during the day, should carry out night attacks on the Soviet-Mongolian army assembly area.

Marshal Blyukher, who had experienced the Russo-Japanese War, was very familiar with the tactics and tactics of the Japanese army, so he reminded the front-line commanders to be on alert, but as Komatsubara expected, after winning an undoubted victory, the Soviet and Russian officers and soldiers who participated in the battle did not think that the Japanese army still had the strength to launch a night attack. This seemingly inconspicuous negligence almost led to a catastrophe -- after midnight, the Japanese army assembled troops to launch a surprise attack from the left flank of the Soviet-Mongolian army, and more than 100 chariots rushed through the endless wilderness.

Perhaps under the favor of Amaterasu, the Japanese 3rd Tank Brigade chose the entry point of the independent artillery regiment, which had the weakest melee combat ability of the Soviet Russian army. With just a burst of "Xiaodou Chariot", the artillery positions of the Soviet and Russian troops were quickly destroyed, and more than 30 cannons of various types were destroyed, which crushed the Soviet and Russian artillery.

There were four Soviet armored units that arrived on the east bank of the Haraha River and participated in the first day's fighting, namely the 6th and 11th Tank Brigades and the 7th and 8th Armored Brigades. After receiving the report that the Independent Artillery Regiment had been raided by the Japanese tank unit, the 6th Tank Brigade, which was stationed closely, immediately dispatched BC-4 and C-35 tanks to rush to reinforcements, and soon encountered the Japanese tank unit head-on!

Due to the lack of moonlight in the second half of the night, the situation on the battlefield was quite chaotic, and the two opposing tank units did not realize each other's identities until they reached a few hundred meters. At a distance almost as far as the muzzle of the gun against the enemy's turret, the shells of both sides threatened each other with a single blow, but the accuracy of the shot was tantamount to closing the eyes and throwing a pot.

Rumble! A bright and piercing flame suddenly flashed in the darkness, and under the effect of inertia, a fast BC-4 vehicle that was shot was still advancing, and after several seconds, it stopped, only to see a tanker with a burning tank jumping out of the tank in panic and rolling on the ground......

Rumble! Another loud explosion was heard, this time the Japanese Type 97 light tank was hit by the shell, billowing black smoke gushing out from the turret and hull hatch of the khaki painted tank, but this scene did not intimidate the high-spirited Japanese charioteers, one after another chariots painted with plaster logos drove past the wreckage of their comrades without hesitation, and roared towards the Russian chariot group like a charging samurai......

Rumble! A Soviet Russian C-35 tank fired at a distance almost from the muzzle against the opponent's turret, and the armor-piercing shell actually hit the turret of the Japanese tank, which on the one hand reflects the terrifying power of the ZIS-4 57 mm caliber tank gun, and on the other hand, it also fully demonstrates the weakness of the defense of the Japanese tank. The frightened Japanese charioteers turned the turret in a purely manual way, and also fired a shot at the opponent......

From midnight to early morning, the Japanese army, which fought more with less and with great momentum, undoubtedly achieved a tactical victory, but the Soviet-Mongolian army was not defeated, and they still occupied a double advantage in quantity and quality. After daybreak, they quickly expelled the Japanese from their positions, rested for a while, and then continued to bombard the areas controlled by the Japanese and Manchurian forces.

On this day, a fierce air battle broke out on the Haraha River -- compared to the large-scale air battles that took place over Britain or North America, the battle between the Soviet Russian air force and the Japanese army aviation units seemed to be nothing to mention, but as far as the Asian scope was concerned, an air battle in which more than 400 fighters participated in it could be described as an out-and-out "great air battle." The main fighter used by the Russian Air Force was the I-16 monoplane designed by Bolikarpov, and many of the Russian pilots had experience in the Caucasus against the air forces of the Western Allies. During the war, about 200 Russian pilots went to fight in the Persian region as volunteers, but in general, the Soviet Russian pilots in 1940 were far inferior in combat experience to the Japanese pilots who had just participated in the Pacific War.

After the tempering of the Pacific War, the strength of the Japanese army aviation has been improved to a certain extent compared with before the war, and the main fighters they are equipped with are no longer the Type 95 fighters that were put into production in 1935 and tragically ravaged by the American-made falcons in the Pacific Theater, but the Type 97 fighters newly developed by the Nakajima Company, which are lighter fighters with faster speed, more firepower, and excellent horizontal mobility, so they are called "the ultimate light fighters". At the end of the Pacific War, taking advantage of the good swing performance of the Type 97 fighter, experienced Japanese pilots often won individual confrontations with the American-made "Eagle Falcon" or the ME-50 fighter jet aided by Europe. However, just like Mu Xiu's truth that the forest wind will destroy it, the outstanding performance of the 97 style has attracted great attention from the outside world. After the end of the war, European and American countries have collected information on the performance of the Type 97 fighter through various channels, and have improved their own fighters and adjusted their air combat tactics-for-tat.

On paper, the Japanese Type 97 fighter was superior to the Russian I-16. At the beginning of the air battle, the Japanese pilots used the usual rotary killing skills, which allowed them to take the lead in a head-on confrontation with the Soviet and Russian fighters, but the opponent quickly found a way to defeat the enemy - the one-hit detachment tactics used by the I-16 could effectively restrain the effect of the rotary attack, and brought a large number of casualties to the experienced Japanese pilots.

(End of chapter)